Everyone Should Hire 'Social Media&nbspExperts'

The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

I caught a post this week from Peter Shankman entitled "I Will Never Hire a Social Media Expert and Neither Should You." It's not the first of its kind, nor was it the best argued, but it struck a nerve and has made a number of waves around the web. Needless to say, as someone who employs multiple team members with a great deal of social media expertise, I strongly disagree with the substance and sentiment of the piece.

Here's Peter's argument in his own words:

No business in the world should want a “Social Media Expert” on their team. They shouldn’t want a guru, rock-star, or savant, either. If you have a “Social Media Expert” on your payroll, you’re wasting your money.

Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.

The full piece makes a passionate case, but an entirely false one. There's no evidence, only opinion; no examples, just speculation; no data, but loads of stereotyping. The author is certainly one of the premier benefactors of social traffic and of a new, more socially-connected web (Mr. Shankman founded and sold HARO, the service that connects journalists to subject-matter experts), yet he somehow manages to ignore the benefits social media has brought him (and his clients/company) to write a scathing dressing-down of anyone who dares claim expertise in this marketing discipline.

As with my arguments against Mr. Roadruck last month, I'm worried that I'm falling for trollbait again. But, the people who do great social media marketing deserve a strong defense, and I believe the evidence is almost entirely in their favor. Besides that, as an SEO, I've long felt the brunt of baseless attacks by ignorant skeptics. I feel both a kinship and a duty to stand up for those who've had their profession ridiculed.

Let's start by exploring the popularity of social media experts in comparison to another job role Mr. Shankman pointed out, traffic planners:

As you can see, there's a dramatic rise in interest and demand for social media folks. I don't think this is because companies are "wasting their money." In the current economic climate, corporate profits are at record levels and companies are hiring with a much greater eye to the bottom line than any other time in the past 20 years. These businesses are investing in high ROI projects + people, and social media is part of that.

The primary point Mr. Shankman appears to make is that social media skills and expertise are merely "common sense" that every marketing professional/department already has. Thus, there's no need to specialists or experts to assist in understanding the tools, opportunities or nuances of the field.

I beg to differ.

Product, marketing, engineering and customer service departments can all benefit from greater knowledge and understanding of social media, and very little of it is common sense. From knowing the difference between an original tweet and a retweet (on the basic end of the spectrum) to crafting lifecycle attribution by melding tools like Bit.ly PRO and Facebook Insights with analytics packages (on the advanced end), social media expertise more than just useful, but often critical to improving overall performance.

Facebook has 600 million users; Twitter's at nearly 200 million; LinkedIn is over 100 million; Blogs have hundreds of millions of readers and tens of millions of publishers; Tumblr alone has 250 million pageviews in a day and Disqus reaches 500 million visitors each month. Social's driving an increasing proportion of the web's traffic, conversions and value. How can anyone logically proclaim that experts are worthless?

As a thought exercise, I created the following chart highlighting some of the critical knowledge areas in social media:

NOTE: As I am not a social media expert, these are likely more illustrative than they are accurate

I don't see how Mr. Shankman can believe A) that these pieces of knowledge won't help organizations improve B) that such knowledge is innate and requires no specialization, research or study.

As further evidence, I'll call to the witness stand some exemplary individuals and companies that I've seen have a massive impact on improving KPIs, processes and internal use of social media. While I'm a passionate supporter of social media marketing, these are the true experts:

Marty Weintraub of AimClear is one of the industry's shining stars. His research, clients and results speak for themselves. No one has ever seen Marty speak and not come away in awe of the passion, dedication and deep expertise he shines.

Dan Zarrella of Hubspot has put together some of the most respectable and useful research in the field of social media and helped to turn HubSpot into a shining beacon of knowledge dissementation across the web. His presentations, webinars and data have made him the web's pre-eminent social media scientist, and someone whose expertise is backed by more data than nearly anyone else in the marketing field.

Ciarán Norris of Mindshare Digital, whom I've known for years and who grew from a talented search marketer into an even more talented social and brand marketer. He now runs digital media marketing for Mindshare in Ireland and has helped dozens of big brands build remarkable, revenue-generating social strategies.

Thomas Høgenhaven is currently engaged in a unique project to study and make recommendations around SEOmoz's internal social community, analyzing how users interact with each other, when high vs. low quality behavior emerges and how to encourage the former while minimizing the latter. I fully expect Thomas' expertise and his work will be invaluable to our community and to the long-term prospects of this part of our business.

Jen Lopez of SEOmoz runs community management here at Moz. She's helped to scale our social presences, stayed in touch with events, questions and engagement across multiple networks and is directly responsible for a substantive portion of our traffic, conversions, retention and brand-building efforts. Her expertise spans tools, platforms, branding concepts, social launches and more. See, for example, the recent Mozcation program she's turned into an amazing outpouring of community effort and attention.

Kristy Bolsinger of Ant's Eye View has consulted with dozens of local and national firms to help devise successful social media + web marketing programs. I've personally heard great feedback from folks who've worked with her, which is why I continue to refer those seeking consultants her way.

There are remarkable people with social media expertise. Some of them even use the highly appropriate title "social media expert" or "social media specialist." They provide a ton of value to the organizations they work with and neither Mr. Shankman, nor anyone else, should belittle their profession.

In fact, I recommend the opposite. Do as we've done, and hire folks with social media knowledge and expertise. It will open opportunities that wouldn't be otherwise available, and if your other processes around monetization and customer acquisition scale, social is a phenomenal complement to whatever channels you're currently pursuing.

On a final note:

Mr. Shankman, if you despise social media expertise and those who earn a living from sharing that knowledge with others, might I suggest that you remove your "featured" listing from this directory of social media consultants? Also, let's get a beer sometime. I bet you've got a ton of social expertise that could help my company (totally serious - I'll even buy).

Happy to grab a drink with you. We can debate these points in public, yet we're pretty much saying the same thing. I'm saying that I'd never hire anyone who sits there and doesn't know the first thing about marketing, they got a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and said, "Hey, I can do this shit!"

You, sir, at least took the time to do research and post your findings. That's more than 99% of the so called "social media experts" would ever bother to attempt.

You know how to find me.

Cheers,

-Peter Shankman

PS: Also kudos to you for not cursing me out, calling me a moron, or doing any of the other hundreds of rude things most of the "social media experts who were offended by my article" did. Class act.

Great reading - The fact we're discussing the subject is increasing awareness and understanding of new areas in marketing so a BIG thanks to both parties for highlighting concerns and counter-arguments in such articulate and professional manners.

This kind of intelligent exchange of opinion and data between experts, not only educates us as marketers, but also works it's way through to smaller business owners and management; acting as clear examples of the (often significant) pros and cons involved with new and complex marketing platforms.

Not sure what people were so upset about. You were just stating some very good facts about what social media is and what it isn't. Just because you can play around on Facebook and Twitter doesn't make you an expert in "social media". Social Media is just another tool in the marketing toolbox and not the end all be all.

Any guy with over 100,000 followers on Twitter who denies the need or value of Social Media expertise is either:

a.) really smart and just picked up a PR 7 link and no doubt some others *cha-ching*

b.) trolling

c.) slightly delusional

d.) is speaking about the need for people to grow up and also for people to call themselves what they truly are - if you're not an expert don't say you are (more to the point Bludge made above). This is also similar to your argument in the post about White Hat and how it works and what spam does to the industry reptuation, so too does claiming expertise damage the image of true social media professionals if it's just another hack on Twitter who hasn't done anything to help out a business.

Definitely we can't deny the need of social media expert in modern days. Or in other words we say we should not dependable on one social media account because we don't know that when is facebook or twitter going to be dead may be it is tommorow or may be it's today. But only a social media expert can analyze the need of latest social media trends and then implement them on your business. They are well specialized in presenting the things to people for getting more attention.

The original article smacks of the same immaturity the author claims is the problem with "Social Media Blackbelts" and "Social Media Gurus" and "Not-only-the-President-but-also-the-client-of-the-Social-Media-Marketers-Club-For-Men". I'm waiting for him to reply to this article with 'U Mad, Bro?'.

Social Media Marketing is the new Web Design. Just as almost anyone can save as HTML from word and call it a day, everyone thinks they are social media experts. It's only a matter of time before some enterprising youngster becomes the world's youngest Social Media Marketer, getting coverage in the NYT weekend magazine and getting ripped apart on the SMM blogs by "real" "legit" Social Media Marketers.

Separating the gold from the river rocks isn't hard, but it sure is time consuming. In 5 years when you have SMM veterans, we can check for track records, but more SMM don't have much of one (aside from the occasional 'Look at how many twits follow my church! I did that!').

I second the notion that SMM isn't going away, and that there are a considerable number of folks that qualify as rocket surgeons or social media theoretical physicists, or whatever, but I also think its important to recognize the nugget of truth, and, by the way, if there was no truth to it, it wouldn't be nearly as inflammatory.

I think you're right, there is an element of trolling in the original article to which you are responding. However I think there is a nugget of truth in what he says. I agree with you Rand that there are many shining examples of excellent usage of social media which have driven bottom line profit. However, it is all too easy for people to say: "yeh so liek I'm totaly a social media expert lol kthxbye" when they've got no business acumen or any kind of marketing experience.

I for one would certainly never employ anyone who described themselves as a "rockstar" "guru" or "ninja" to name but a few ridiculously childish terms which have infiltrated the online marketing arena. I want to work with professional marketers, not people that think speaking like a pre-pubescent boy is the way to conduct yourself within a business (even if that's the language you need to use to reach your customers, you don't use it in the office as far as I'm concerned).

I think it goes beyond the irritating language and pseudo-cool folks a lot of people seem to associate with "social media marketer." They're the stereotype, but they're not really the reality in my experience (although I do know one such person, to be fair). I thought Shankman was protesting against a more ingrained, better-disguised version of social media bullshit: the guy who's not dressed like he's 15 but who writes the same blog post over and over again with a different title, saying nothing more revolutionary than he did last week. The girl who tweets about how to get more Twitter followers, and that's her job. And they're heralded for it like it's actually important and helpful and hasn't been said over and over again by swarms of social media marketer clones.

The emperor has no clothes. I could have written a similar rant because I've sat around in this industry for five years, looking at naked emperors! Shankman's trolling in that he appreciates good marketing and uses provocative language anyway. Hey, that's also good marketing, as we've established! :D

Shankman can be the beneficiary of thousands of his own Twitter followers, thunderous traffic from Reddit (800+ points and rising as of this afternoon) and can still dislike people who talk rubbish, pretend that their Facebook fan pages are the height of fine art and, when they meet you at an industry event, weigh you up to see if you're worth talking to. Your worth is often, for these people, counted in Twitter followers.

I read this as being a rant against those people, and fair enough too. Shankman knows what he's doing and he appreciates good marketing along with the rest of us. To my mind, his opinion of the bottom feeders of the industry is actually a plug for people who are talented, hard-working, and who don't consider regurgitating "RT @blanddigitialbore Facebook / Twitter Integration with Adwords YouTube Comment Aggregation post #seo #socialmedia #greatpostdude #bestthingever http://bit.ly/iux7Sb" to be the most profound display of marketing ever put to print.

"Your worth is often, for these people, counted in Twitter followers."

Hehe, those people would think I'm pretty worthless then, to my dis-credit I don't use twitter nearly enough and have hardly any followers... I don't get how people have the time to use it, or remember to tweet about stuff... I'm always too wrapped up in some kind of randomness to think about it. Maybe I just need to force it into a habit.

If the rant said "There's a lack of professionalism among some who proclaim themselves to be social media experts," I could certainly get behind that. There's a lack of professionalism in every field and with every position - it's particularly visible in fields that we pay attention to (in Mr. Shankman's case, social media), but it's a fair statement and a reasonable rant.

What I worry about is when that specific complaint becomes the broad, unfair, inaccurate mischaracterization of an entire field, job title or area of expertise, and I'm even more worried when there's such latent hypocrisy. However, you bring up the fair point that had the rant been more properly targeted, many of us could get behind it.

Rand.. the people you listed with the exception of one, don't call themselves "social media experts", except one.. and based on times i've seen that person speak.. it fits..

just like newbies seos that suggest an unproven tactic they read on a blog without testing prior to client implementation....

He's speaking to the social media hype.. believe it or not.. some people believe the bs they are spewing.. and lot of it is B.S.

Saw a local "social media expert" who has a book and had been doing social media consulting for the past 2 years (book is one year old), on TV.. she didn't answer the questions correctly, didnt give good business advice, but hey.. the news anchors didn't catch it..

and no body is going to tell the emperor she is naked and clueless....

I agree with this comment in regards that there are some frauds out there who act like they know social media and charge a fair amount of money for poor value and service. I beleive this goes for any industry and companies have to be aware of who they're hiring. Do some of your own basic research before hiring someone for social media... or anything for that matter.

Overall Social Media is an important marketing stradegy and it is worth-while to at minimum consult and expert if not have one on staff.

Shankman writes a response to this post saying that he agrees with Rand that of course, there are legitimate social media experts (loved the chart, Rand, by the way,) but that he’s referring to people who call themselves social media experts when really, they just know a few basics.

I have a problem with that. My potential clients don’t know that Shankman is making this distinction. In fact, anyonereading Shankman’s article doesn’t know he’s making a distinction between actual ‘experts’ and people who claim to be experts- you have to come here and read through the comments to learn it. Most people outside this industry are not involved in this dialogue- it’s all SEOs/social media/website developers in the comments, of course!

Who else outside of this industry would seek out and read this article? Businesses who were considering hiring social media marketers, that’s who.

Luckily, this article doesn’t affect me, because I don’t claim to be a social media expert- those who know me know that I am having a really hard time getting into Twitter, let alone using it effectively for virile marketing.

But if my company was a legitimate social media marketing firm, I’d be very upset with Shankman’s article. Admitting that there are social media experts, and they can be important part of overall marketing strategy, but writing an article which makes no distinction between that and people who just know how to set up a company page on Facebook- seems awfully unfair to those business people who are relying on Shankman for legitimate business advice regarding online marketing.

My reaction to Shankman's article was, "Clickbait. Tell me how you would scale social media as a tool to a marketing organization and entire company the size of Dell without a team of dedicated social media professionals."

If we agree SMM is a tool, then don't we want experts wielding that tool? Just as I agree with one of Shankman's basic points that your marketing department ought not to be made up strictly of SMM experts with no real marketing experience, by the same token I would not want marketing experts with no SMM experience scaling social media into my enterprise.

It's the blanket statement in the headline, which was never explained or had caveats given, that I had a problem with. There certainly is a need for social media experts where I work.

Thanks for taking this on Rand. "Spheres of Social Media Expertise" = Brilliant. I take issue with the fact that you don't consider yourself expert. It just goes to prove that true experts don't think they are. See ya' in Seattle for 'Advanced mate.

First Rand, I have to thank you for listing me as an expert, but I honestly do not consider myself one. Every single day I learn something new and sadly sometimes I learn them the hard way. :) Just as I would never call myself an SEO expert or even a parenting expert (goodness far from it), I simply feel that there's still too much to know and learn.

Now, back to the topic. When I read the original post, I agreed with Peter and retweeted it. To me what he was saying is that calling yourself an "expert", "guru" or whatever fancy name they want to give themselves, doesn't make them one. I didn't take away from the post that he was saying you should never hire someone with a social media background, simply that you shouldn't focus on hiring people who proclaim themselves experts.

I love that you're passionate on the subject, and I agree with Marty above when he says that you are actually one of the experts I would list. You understand this space more than many people I know! I really appreciate this response and it makes me see the original post in a different light. I'm quite proud of what I do and my work here, and this just adds to that flame that keeps me going. Thanks for that!

Well, I consider you one, and I think the stats and results are in my favor :-)

I can see the appeal of Peter's post - like many critical pieces, it's fun to write and to read. I just felt the attack was far too broad, lacked critical nuance and didn't use any data or examples to back up such a strong, negative assertion. I know our readers hold us to a very high standard, and I thought it was only fair to point out what I felt was inaccurate/over-reaching.

I do owe you one, Jen - it was your tweet that pointed me to the original article (ahhh, the power of social).

It think there's a lot of angst around so many people throwing around the term Social Media Expert and Guru, especially when so many people aren't. I think the key here, which you focus on, is that proper management of a company's social media presence can be very beneficial. It creates exposure and can drive traffic and conversions. When I think about this position, I think about the qualities and skills the person should have, which include:

Very good writing skills!

Their "common" sense aligns with the approach and personality of the company

Curiosity which can translate into starting and participating in interesting discussions

Experience using most major social networks

Likability...will people like and engage with this person?

I think Jennifer Lopez embodies all of these characteristics (and many more), which is why I think she's a very good fit for Moz. I also think that her contribution to both the Moz and external social communities must have a positive impact on exposure, conversions, and customer retention. So if you're doing it right, which you guys are, hiring a "Social Media Expert" is about one of the smartest things you can do.

I am far from a "Social Media Expert", though I generally do add "high-proficiency in social media strategy and marketing integration" to my list of qualifications. I have known a number of Social Media Experts or Social Media Marketers, though. Shockingly, some are extremely professional and good at what they do, and some are posers hopping on board for the ride. I know, it came as quite a surprise to me too. That said, I would very much like to address some of the issues raised in the original article and in the comments:

1) Irony, thy name is Shankman: For someone who seems to put so much emphasis on good writing, I noticed his post was unclear, rambling, drawn-out, and generally written at a level just above forum troll and just below high school book report. Especially given his back-tracking that he was "only talking about a very specific type of 'social media experts'". You would think someone that seems to place so much value on good, clear writing would have been able to write a good, clear post that wasn't misunderstood and misinterpreted. Unless...

2) Trolling is never good form. It's one thing to write provocative content and challenge generally held assumptions, it is quite another thing to write a post with the sole intent of stirring up trouble. Especially when you happen to be held in fairly high esteem in your field and your post potentially ends up jeopardizing the careers of many, many well-meaning and unrelated people. Thanks to Pete, I am now going to have to work even harder to overcome the reluctance so many people have towards social media, despite that it can be (note: "can be", not always) a huge driver of revenue. So thanks, Pete. Thanks a lot. You have essentially sold out your field solely for the purpose of self-promotion.

3)His bulleted list: Ok, I see some relevant and valid points in there. How does this invalidate the position of "Social Media Expert"? Can those same points not be carried across to say "SEO"s are useless? After all, SEO is just one facet of marketing, and all marketers should be fluent in SEO. In fact, you can plug in any digital marketing job title into that headline and it will make just as much sense:

I Will Never Hire a “web analytics expert,” and Neither Should You;

I Will Never Hire an “e-mail marketing expert,” and Neither Should You;

I Will Never Hire a “digital video marketing expert,” and Neither Should You;

I Will Never Hire a “digital copy-writing expert,” and Neither Should You;

My point with #3 is that he backs up his bold assertion with a small handful of generic, trite, and completely unhelpful generalities that could really be applied to just about any facet of what everyone here does.

And now for the comments:

Yes, we all know the annoying little brat who's parents pay their rent while they go around claiming to be a social media expert. Yes, they're annoying. Yes, they give the field of social marketing a bad name. They are few, far between, and generally don't last very long. Moreover, they are found in EVERY field. Especially in marketing, where the only real qualification is adding "marketer" after your name. All of those people put together make hardly as much of a negative impact on our field as this article. When I am pitching a client, and they tell me "so and so has done our facebook page for us, but it didn't work and we don't want to do it anymore," I can always pull up some case studies and client referrals to demonstrate that social done right works. Now, though, people can point to this article by a *gasp* self-styled social media expert with prominence and I have an uphill battle to climb in convincing clients I know what I'm doing. Ask yourselves: "Is taking some upstart social media expert down a notch worth tarnishing the reputation of the whole field?" If you answered yes, you should probably not be working in the field to begin with, since clearly we annoy you too much.

As for the job titles, can we please get over it and move on? One of the single smartest individual I know works in research for Google. His official job title? "Defender of the Universe". If a company like Google, known for employing brilliant people who get things done, and get things done well, allows employees to come up with their own job titles, and doesn't care what people chose to call themselves, why should we care if someone calls themselves a guru, rockstar, ninja, superhero, or whatever? Can they get the job done? Do they have demonstrable results they can point to? Do they know what they're talking about? Good. Let people have fun with their jobs. I would much rather hire someone who enjoys what they do and can have a little fun with it than yet another "Analyst, level 2" who is only doing it because it's nice, quiet, steady work, and lives for 5 pm. In fact, I would rather hire someone who is enthusiastic for their job EVEN IF THEY AREN'T AS PROFICIENT IN IT. You can train someone to be a great marketer. You can't train someone to be out-going and love what they do.

I agree with Rand in that social media marketing is not just "common sense" and companies should be investing in someone who has specific knowledge; BUT, I'm glad Peter clarified his position in his comment - because I happen to agree with him too!

I don't call myself a social media "expert" for the exact same reasons Peter won't hire one - it's an overused, cliched, obnoxious title that has overrun the online marketing industry like a weed. Just search on Twitter or LinkedIn for "social media expert" and have a chuckle at all the clowns out there calling themselves that who haven't CLUE 1 about what they're doing. Where's your proof? What real, substantial social media marketing success can you point to (and I don't just mean setting up a profile and getting followers, friends, Likes, etc.)?

Just like with any other marketing discipline, expertise comes with experience, knowledge and, most importantly, success. The proof is in the pudding, people. If you're a business owner looking to hire someone to handle social media, ask about specific campaigns/initiatives, goals, tools used, metrics, and results. If you're an "expert" looking to get hired, be prepared to talk about this.

Peter's post actually reminded me of a similar one written on the HubSpot blog last year called Please Don't Start a Social Media Marketing Agency. It got a similar reaction, and being from an agency that primarily does social media marketing, I wrote a response to that post called Is There Such a Thing as a Social Media Marketing Agency? My point here is that agencies (and "experts") have to realize that social media is so much more than Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (exactly the point Rand is making in his "Spheres of Social Media Expertise" table). Social media (and all its tools and tactics) needs to be part of the whole - not the whole itself.

"Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge."

Yes because there are numerous books written on how to take bread out of a fridge, and how to make a sandwich. I believe there's a comprehensive course coming up soon including a great seminar on defrosting frozen bread before buttering it...

You can't oversimplify creativity. It strikes me in the little knowledge I have gained on the subject so far that much of SMM is about ideas, original and innovative ideas. Comparing creativity and great ideas with taking the bread out of the fridge is like comparing science with tying your shoe laces.

So, to play devil's advocate here, you're saying that you can actually be a "social media expert"? And that it warrants its own salary and job title, despite essentially just requiring a person to be an "ideas person"?

Surely, to use your own logic, anyone with a degree of business nouse and a few ideas can be an "SMM expert", then?

The fact is, anyone with the above can be an SMM, which is the exact problem the blog post is trying - albeit poorly - to articulate. I know a lot of great SEOs with a lot of creativity that can succeed in the SMM arena. That doesn't mean it's a job in its own right.

Ah, no becuase it's not just any ideas is it. It's ideas that fit in well and attract publicity and traffic, ideas that can make or break a brand. I'm not saying I can do this for one minute, again, I haven't been at it long enough. But the idealogy of "ideas" and "creativity" still needs to be thought of in context of the subject... so the ideas must fit, for the business, and for social media.

Lots of "new" stuff comes out all the time, whether it's apps, social sites, games, online inventions, humour of some kind online, etc... etc... and some of these ideas help companies enjoy great success, through them as a medium.

Mathemeticians have ideas, but about mathematics... star gazers have ideas about the universe, Edison and Tesla had ideas about power generation... not all ideas are in the same context, not all ideas are equal, and not all ideas work for every industry and on every platform.

Basically what I mean is, a marketing idea isn't necessarily a social media marketing idea ;p the two types of creativity are not necessarily synonymous (that the right word?)

I saw the headline for his article and kept on going because it was obvious trollbait, negative from the word "never", and someone with that opinion has clearly never hired a skilled SMM or knows what social sites and networking are.

As a counterpoint to this though Rand, I'd be interested to see how many of the people you've mentioned above (all of whom I agree with, by the way *waves at Kristy*) would call *themselves* social media experts... or even specialists, strategist etc. 90% of my current role is handling our social media efforts, but I still wouldn't consider myself a "social media marketer"... I prefer to think of myself as a digital marketer... because, really the term "social media marketing" has less relevance these days.

One of my favourite points in Ciaran's presentation at SMX Sydney this year (recap here if you're interested) was when he "told everyone to stop talking about social media as all media should be social". I think that viewpoint probably extends to the label of "social media expert" too.

I would definitely never call myself a social media "expert". The only thing I consider myself an "expert" at honestly is...well, me. As for the other titles however - I've been a specialist and a strategist in social media. In those roles they were the right title. I think it totally depends on the organization, it's structure and needs as to what title makes sense and the responsibilities that person should have. It's definitely something that's on a per-case basis IMHO.

Wow, since I'm apparently one of only three people in the entire marketing/SEO/PR world who hasn't yet commented here, please permit me to rectify that with three quick points.

1) (insert name here) is a social media expert if clients and other established voices call him/her one. Otherwise, he/she is a just a blowhard.

2) Being able to create a Facebook page (unless it's a truly spectacular Facebook page) doesn't even rise to the level of a technical skill, much less does it confer any guru-dom. Your grandma can do it.

3) Businesses want bottom-line results. A person who has skills that can help increase sales or retain customers can call themselves whatever they want (guru, maven, rockstar, ninja, or any other adolescent boy term) and still get clients. Individuals who lack those skills need to work hard, read, observe, and generally be humble until they reach the point where they have either earned such a title...or matured to the point where they realize they don't need it.

LOL... you proved that you don't need to be Assange to discover the skeletons (badly) hidden in someone's Internet closet :D

Apart that, trying to play the devil's advocate role here, what it is also true is that the undoubted huge request of Social Media Experts is causing also negative side effects, generated by the general ignorance of what really means to be a Social Media Experts and what Social Media Marketing is.

I see it every day, especially in the case of small/medium business, which literally jump on the SM train to try to "survive" against the daily increasing competition. In fact many of them finally rely on self proclaimed Social Media Experts who what really know is some Facebooking and Messanger chatting...

Somehow, this is very similar to something us a SEOs know and live on our own skin when it comes to self proclaimed SEO experts.

The problem is that Social Media is a discipline even yourger and less mature than SEO, and with Brand related disasters more evident: in the best case, the brand will remain unknown, in the worst case it can be destroyed by a bad Social Media Campaign.

We absolutely agree that when launching a social media campaign, it's double-edged sword, especially if not used properly. It's a lot like standarized tests where you lose points for a wrong answer, but if you don't answer at all, nothing happens. You're better off not running a SM campaign if it's not going to be run correctly.

Rand, firstly, thanks for including me in such stellar company. Seriously, I'm touched.

As to Mr Shankman's post, he has a point. Just.

His point seems to be that people who only understand social media, and don't see how it integrates with other forms of marketing, are of no use. And he's right.

But the reverse is also true.

People who have grown up in DM, PR, TV creative, etc... and don't see how these integrate with digital, including social, are also of no use to most businesses.

I have to agree with a couple of the commenters here that one of the problems social has is that so many self-proclaimed experts use ridiculous language (guru, ninja, jedi, givemestrength), but I've seen equally ridiculous titles in offline as well.

At the end of the day, the phrase social media is, to my mind, becoming redundant: social permeates so much of everything that brands should be doing, on & offline, that it's becoming meaningless.

And, as it does, the need for siloed specialists, will also likely shrink. But the need for people who can see across barriers, and understand how platforms such as Facebook & Twitter (or Ren Ren, Vkontakte, or Hyves), can be part of an integrated comms strategy, will only continue to increase. Whereas, hopefully, the need for people who troll for links by writing shouty posts with little context, will hopefully disappear.

I really agree with a lot of what you're saying here. Especially the bit about understanding and silo's. People's level of understanding is going to have to grow and these silo's will continue to deteriorate as we all mature through this process. Yes yes yes :)

I simply see social media as part of the online marketing mix, in the same way that SEO and SEM is.

Just as you can specialise in SEM or SEO, you can also specialise in SMM. I think what Peter is trying to argue is: does it warrant a salaried position of its own?

And I'd tend to agree that, in most cases, it probably doesn't. It's just a small part of a big puzzle for 90% of SMEs. And, most importantly, social media is tough to monetise in its current state (with fCommerce trying to change that). I think it's fair to say that there are much more valuable activities to pursue first and foremost.

And I think it's hard to dispute that, no matter how big of a deal you think social media is to an overarching online marketing strategy.

I agree. Sure, you could give social media your all but most self-promoters (one man companies) and small businesses that do not have large amounts of followers/friends, etc. don't get a return on investment off of it. I have a couple thousand followers/friends across multiple social networks myself and I can't get a good ROI and contests and what not are a waste of my time because almost no one wants to join even an incredibly awesome contest with great prizes. It depends on the size of your business, because for small businesses it's not only about the pay-off but about the trade-off: do social media stuff or do SEO instead in my valuable working hours. I'd rather do "hardcore" SEO and get some likes on the side, then to waste hours on Facebook. Hell, since I stopped wasting hours with campaigning on Facebook my income AND traffic has tripled. In short, it depends on the pay-off/trade-off and on the industry you're in.

I hired a social media expert ten months ago and it was the best decision. Social media is an ever-changing medusa. It is nearly impossible to managing your online and social media presence without professional support.

Yes, social media is still relatively young so it is the wild west in terms of the range of results and the quality of the vendors. Similar to web design, marketing, and graphic design, there are many who claim to be experts; however, there are very few who are truly talented. It does take some trial and error to find the right vendor as well as the appropriate social media strategy for your project or organization. The first social media team that I hired was lack luster. The results were unimpressive.

On the surface social media might look easy (taking bread out of the fridge) but don't be deceived. It is a complex process which requires a significant resource committment. I spent eighteen months researching social media before taking the plunge and I have had a number of bumps and bruises along the way. Nonetheless, it has been well worth it. I am very happy with the relationship we have with our social media expert, Duncan Westley, and his talented team at Social Stardom (http://www.facebook.com/SocialStardom).

Franky, I find the whole bread-fridge-sandwich analogy rather silly and childish.

Then, to quote DoriC:“Shankman writes a response to this post saying that he agrees with Rand that of course, there are legitimate social media experts (loved the chart, Rand, by the way,) but that he’s referring to people who call themselves social media experts when really, they just know a few basics. I have a problem with that.”

I agree completely. Probably the author of the article didn’t expect such a comprehensive answer, and because he doesn’t know how to combat Rand’s very good point, he takes a different approach, by twisting the original intent of the article. That’s cheap. If he is so adamant and convinced of what he’s saying, he should stick to the original point.

Also, it doesn’t make sense. In every profession, there are people who do it exceptionally well and people who are mediocre. This is just the card he pulled out at the face of the high standards of excellence mentioned in this article. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be the customer of mr. Shankman, a person who applies so low quality standards in his work. Just as I wouldn't want to be the customer of a person who makes such serious mistakes as writing that article.And for everyone saying he wrote that post for links and attention and that he was “intelligent” for doing it, I’m not buying it. This is not the strategy of a man promoting “solid Marketing tactics”.

Finally, newsflash for mr. Shankman: any profession which is practiced professionally and with passion, even if it's just one person in the world doing it, is an honorable profession.

I'm slightly perturbed that people who are "advocating results" and evangelizing "solid social media skills" are all novices at BOTH SEO and Social Media.

I MYSELF am not an expert on either, but I call SHENANIGANS on everyone that's screaming "outcomes, outcomes, outcomes."

A HUGE component of social media is branding as an excercise. And branding as a WHOLE is an excercise in cost savings on the aquisition of the future customer.

It takes a very savvy analyst to understand the holistic relationship your tweets have on moving the needle. In fact, my ONLY caveat to Rand's post would be to stay Stumble Upon belongs in the FIRST column of the infograpihc. It's an EASY social media channel to manage; at the very TOP LEVEL you know your cost against referred converters. Meanwhile Facebook should probably be in the SECOND category, just because there are so many levels of segmentation and basic targeting options you have like "advertising by occupation." (FYI, a tidbit for those social media mavens on Stumble. You should get TWO referals from stumble upon: one for the actual "flash" of the page, and another for an actual click through. So if your cookie lasts longer than your standard 30 days, you might get attribution errors for conversions as a result of a Stumble Upon campaign. In best practice, take the number of referrers from www.stumbleupon.com and not the stumbleupon.com. So dub dub dub = click through. No www = just a flash of the page.)

... I'm soooo off topic. Yes, social media needs to have outcomes, but you need to understand your marketing channels HOLISTICALLY to properly attribute how successful your social media campaigns are. If you're the newbie that's hiding behind a "consulting persona" screaming "social media results, conversions, sales," them I'm skeptical of your skill set as a whole. Your social media mix should be measured and optimized for a broader outcome than just "sales for the month."

Great discussion here..truly if you claim you are "guru" or "shining star" or expert..then you have to prove it by making a business profitable instead of blah blah...self promotion speech...besides that social media is obvious addition for today's marketing field,so if some one ignore his social presence/engagement,then he is missing a some good opportunities...

Great post. I liked your chart so much I referenced it in little mashup I wrote about Geek Pride Day (covered by GeekWire yesterday) and why every company needs a social media geek.

Bottom line, the business keeps growing and changing faster than most can keep up with it. And when you step outside the echo chamber of the social media space, you'll find that plenty of mere mortal marketing folk have no idea where to bite off a piece of the social media pie. These late adapters still need to find their footing like the rest of us have done through hours of practice and experimentation. Having an expert on board is both necessary and prudent.

Thank you for drawing the line between social media devotees and social media professionals. Not everyone that has a twitter account can make that transition into the social media marketing world. To be honest, I still find myself hovering just inside the intermediate knowledge sphere. This post has stoked my desire to push beyond my current personal limits.

IMHO ... the problem with SM experts is that anyone can proclaim that they are an expert and sell their 'services' - which in turn ultimately dilutes the value of true experts. BTW, Gary Vaynerchuk very recently said almost the very same thing (as PS) about SM experts.

I agree here, but it's the same as an "SEO Expert". I've interviewed candidates who say they are "SEO Experts" and then talk about optimizing meta-keywords. You just have to be able to filter through the garbage, I suppose.

Haha, yeah sometimes it seems there's millions of SEO's in the UK who have read SEO for Dummies or done a one-day workshop, and then are experts.

You only have to Google something to do with SEO services, or SEO company, etc... along with a location around here, go a few pages back, and you'll find a web designer who's great with design offering SEO services, you click on that and read that same generic "pulled from SEMPO glossary" explanation of SEO and you can see straight away from their title tags and incoming links that they shouldn't be offering it to clients.

If I meet with a potential client and they're getting quotes from elsewhere too, I leave saying to them... "These other guys you're seeing later, ask them the following three questions and you'll know if they know anything: 1) What is Keyword Cannibalization, 2) What is Canonicalization, 3) Will you get our PageRank higher, I've heard that's important!" I give them the answers and say if they don't know those fundamental things, they don't know squat, i.e. if they try to sell you on the importance of PR then boot them out.

*Edit: No offence to Bruce Clay for the SEO for Dummies thing, but you know what I mean... there's just more to it than that.

So I noticed I'd got three thumbs down, which is fair enough, we can't all agree. But I was curious to see if anyone had maybe given a reason... just so I'd know what I might have said that could have caused disagreement (I had some guesses, but they turned out to be wrong). I saw the it was three on separate posts, one didn't really make sense. I looked further and saw that in the last hour, a bunch of people had gotten a thumbs down.

Some of the comments from those people weren't at all controversial, and were in fact quite balanced. Then there were other comments that shared the views of those comments, and they had no thumbs down at all. Some of them just makes you think "What the... why did someone give them a thumbs down for that??"

What strange person has visited the post in the last hour or so, and simply, quietly just gone through and clicked thumbs down completely at random. No explanation or challenge, no logical pattern of opposition. Just a weird, weird thing to do.

I think the issue so many have with the "expert" craze is the hype and perception of arrogance when someone refers to themselves as such. Our society has become accustomed to hype covering for shoddy knowledge and experience from snake-oil artists. As for the implication that social media doesn't require specialized skill - I think anyone who's experienced both successful and failed campaigns will vouch for the skills required for the position. Also, I feel there's a very different perception of the term, "expert," vs "specialist" or "strategist." The last two imply a technical job description relatively free of hype and ego (IMO). The "expert" term seems to rub people the same as "guru" or "master," "Rock Star," etc. So for an experienced and knowledgeable person to consider themselves a social media "specialist," or "strategist," as in, "specializing" in social media, is perceived differently than, "I'm a Social Media 'Expert'." The latter implies a lack of humility and a sense of pompousness, turning off many who just need a level-headed professional who can make business happen.

It may seem like this debate hinges on a simple word, but what's really being called out, is an underlying pompous attitude, a sometimes fraudulent projection of expertise to vulnerable prospects, and a disrespecting of an art by those claiming to have mastered it in just three weeks, and now they're an "expert." It's just a word, but the slight nuances created by words, images, attitudes and expressions in our brand can make or break the day, and it seems the term "expert" has had its day in the minds of many.

What's in the name, really? If someone gets the results, they can call themselves The One And The Only, for all I care. Results differentiate clueless title seekers from true specialists.

Recently companies do not only acknowledge the existence of Social Media, but recognize its importance. In order not to fall behind, they are seeking help. Hiring an in-house Social Media practitioner is a way to go - no argument here. Hiring a Social Media consultant is a different story. We all love Jen Lopez because she skillfully carries the SEOmoz culture into the online community. She is not just a "staff member" but a company evangelist of sorts. That connection is hard to achieve if a company is using a consultant. A person has to be an insider to be an effective brand advocate on social sites. In my opinion, consultants should educate and train the in-house people.

We all know who the experts are. They can be easily identified by a search engine of your choice. If companies are serious about being successful in Social Media, they will do their due diligence and will hire one of those experts. One thing for sure - if you are a significant brand or think of yourself as one, get an in-house evangelist.

SEO, Social Media presence, blogging and having discussions on authority sites are all methods of creating quality online presence.

As there is a shift from traditional methods of marketing to online methods of marketing people are realizing the need for all this as they are being suggested by their marketing companies but however the online marketing companies fail in passing on the message across as sometimes they themselves are not aware of the nitty grity of it or at times the client just is not open to all the suggestions.

As we are still at the transitory stage and there are very few who can claim having experience for social media marketing. Mostly people are at the trial and error stage and are learning.

social media is about PR, branding, customer support and much more at an online platform . Companies have been executing these functions with traditional methods the end is not different the means to acheive that end has changed and is topped with technology when you do not have many experts in an industry you either identify a few people from your existing team to manage social media who will learn in the process by being prepared to face the pitfalls also or hire people who call themselves experts and get your staff trained by them so atleast they have a direction or outsource the whole activity.

In future the traditional marketing teams in every company which has the sales people, the marketing and advertising people , the customer support people will be replaced by the online marketing teams with SEOs, social media (experts), blog writers and other technical support teams till then everybody is still learning and gathering experience as the web, Google, Facebook, Twitter,etc. are still at their teenage, tween or toddler level themselves.

I agree that within most businesses there needs to be resource dedicated 100% to social media, but personally I'm not convinced you need to hire an expensive self proclaimed expert. I think as long as the persona has some reasonable experience of social media, after that it is largely common sense. For instance, I do not consider myself to be an expert in social media at all - but I use facebook and twitter a few times a week and with this experience alone I feel I could comfortably pick up a social campiagn tomorrow and run it succesfully.

There are experts, and there are experts -- your great chart helped put the icing on that one.

I could not resist blogging about this, and credit you for the debate that inspired me to think more critically about this whole thing. Hope you take a peek at my blog post: Barry Diller: The Original Social Media "Expert"! (Rand Fishkin v. Peter Shankman) http://bit.ly/kJGgc3

At least I still have the impression that when you try to hire one you don't have quite a "knowledge test" :)). What's in the table in this article it's really helpful, but for example you cannot be certain that the way that expert will address properly to your (future) clients, coming from another domain.

So therefore, I think that a Social Media employee should first of all know your market more than 3-6 months and to understand exactly your domain/industry (you don't let a Social Media worked for Mobile Phones or something like that to come and address in the same way in food or fashion commerce).

It's a bit based on feeling and some luck, not just knowledge and experience.

The sandwich criterion would exclude some highly-paid participants in the modern specialised economy. "Sorry Cassandra architect, what we're really looking to do is run a social network ... and all you can do is distributed computing."

I think what had really gotten Shankman's goat (and rightly so) is the mis-use of the term "expert," especially when it comes to social media. Everyone and their grandmother is a social media expert these days. The majority of advice that comes from these "experts" is common sense to anyone who's spent more than two hours looking into social media on the web.

One could make the argument that expertise is relative, however, and hiring decisions have to be made based on where the individual company is and where they want to go. Hiring someone who really does know what they're doing, especially on the analytics side, can be invaluable to a company, but it is equally true that hiring a so-called expert can be a huge waste of their time.

Nice Article. I really appreciate your initial chart attemp on "Spheres of Social Meida Expertise." Being an entrepreneur myself, I have recently branched out to help businesses in this area. And when I created my title, I was very careful to avoid expert, guru, or even consultant. I settled on Social Media Specialist. I do try to help businesses by creating unique solutions for them, and the best part about it, is if I don't know how to implement a specific solution, I either learn or sub-contract.

I believe it is all about setting expectations, and if you present yourself as an expert, and are even a bit short of that august title, then you are setting yourself up for failure AND bringing down the rest of us in the bargain.

There is value in social media marketing but it should be implemented with a specific purpose. I do have any issue with the term “expert”. The social media space is forever evolving. Just because you’re an expert today, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be an expert in 6 months.

By the way, It’s the best roast ever! Don’t throw stones when you live in a glass house.

Thank you, Mr. Fishkin! I've worked in Information Technology for many years and started work on becoming a Social Media Expert myself a couple of months ago, and I think it's a pretty good idea. I'm not sure what Peter's motivation was.

It seems that this blog really help us to aware about the use of social media & how social media experts are helps to increase social presence of any websites. Now a days this is the most effective technique of marketing becuase this form of marketing is free of cost & this helps the site owners to get the audience on thier site via social media channel.

I believe the you are still looking at this at a very tactical level. Social Media done right for Small Business is still very much different from Enterprise Social Media + Social Business Strategy that looks that how internal business processes can be augmented by the use of social. Not alone from Marketing but also from Support, Product, Research, and Knowledge Management.

Imagine listening in social media to predict user behaviour? Coming up with ways to modify mass advertising by incorporating social listening.

These are the areanas that most of the PR/Communications firms will never be promoting because even Peter Shankman cannot consult there. Yes, for most of 'social media execution', a great social media expert/strategist should be looking at all channels (from twitter to quora) based on audience requirements. If I am selling bean bags, then I don't want to be on quora per say (based on my limited resources). But if my target audience lives and breathes there, then yes, that should be my FIRST point of entry.

Hope this helps. I've led Digital Strategy at IBM for number of years and now leading it at one of the largest telco's in Canada. Opinions are mine and not some one who hasn't done this before. ;)

We've come across so many so called "social media experts" that all they do is spam your profile with unnecessary and horrible postings as well as friend/follow a ton of profiles that don't generate engagement. All their focused on is growing your like/follower count. Remember to always select "experts" that go for qualilty over quantity when it comes to growing your communities online.

Expert training is good, knowing a subject makes you an expert.. relative to someone without that training. We all need some expertise, and we all can learn more. Hiring a social media expert, based on the title would be foolish. Just one factor. More important. does a potential hire know and understand you and your business

Obviously a subject that everyone has been wanting to get their teeth into.

I have to say that one of the biggest problems I have encountered is the plain ol' SM users who go around telling people all the "facts" they've learned about SM (Twitter and Facebook in particular).

To be honest I'd really like to see someone put together a real course of study with contributions from the likes of some of those you mentioned in your post - a way for us "little fish" to get a recognizable qualification that gives us some kind of standing in clients eyes when trying to refute some of the rubbish they have been fed. Maybe SEOmoz could facilitate??

Thanks as always for loading this post with great information and to you and Peter for reminding us all that life is about being reasonable people and choosing what you want to make out of every situation.

The fact is that nobody can do all the work himself. There is so much to do in the social media aspects and there is so much to gain from the social media. If you can spend hours on social media accounts yourself then its good but if you can not, then its time to hire a social media expert. You just can not ignore this aspect of the marketing today. Search Engine Marketing can not be complete without the use of social media...

I get what he was saying. I think the basis of the argument (Besides being an obvious opportunity to get tons of links using a controversial statement), is that unless your company is massive, their is no reason to hire someone specifically for their knowledge as a social media expert full time in your company. You want your core full time team to be able to move the needle and not just charge a high price to tell you how to move the needle, because then you still have to move the needle. Also, we still don't have effective job descriptions in the social media, and SEO world. I for one look at someone with content based link building skills in entirely different light than someone who has keyword optimized as website. Both would be called SEO's by most.

Social media requires a lot of working parts to really get the ROI out of it. All industries have a different proportional amount of effort needed by strategists and management when compared to the bottom level employees that put rubber to road. If you employ a social media expert, you better have a lot of resource at their disposal in order to justify their salary.

As for Rand sticking up for the social media experts on his list. I think you are actually agree with you counterpoint in this article to some degree. All the people you mentioned may say they are social media consultant, but it that title infers that they are experts with a technical knowledge of tools available to social media practitioners. In reality, it is their knowledge of nuances of interpersonal communication, psychology, and a dozen other fields that make them effective. Perhaps the argument is in the ambuguity of the language we use in this industry and not in the underlying principles of the mentioned articles. Then again, maybe it would be a match of rockem sockem robots.

It is with mixed emotions that I state the following opinion. The VAST majority of self procliamed social medai experts I know (not a large sampling here) would have difficulty getting the bread to the table, but are decent presenters at meet up groups every where.

It's just to big to put it in one bucket these days. I think on a local bases the vast majority of "socail media" experts were selling payroll services or training horses a mere 12 months ago. I am not joking. Those are actual examples of people in our market, collecting money from small businesses to do 'Social Media". Like the early days of many new industries, it's a mess and will take a while to sort out.

I really would love to see these type discussions focused on National or regional, and then the Local aspect. The dynamics in SEO, Social media and most promotion and advertising changes dramaticlly between those two areas. And it is my opinion ( and I am right more than 37% of the time) that a significant number of SEOmoz readers and members service the local business community.

Let me state, I have heard and had the opportunity to work with a few national Social medai consultants who are worth there weight in PR 7 links, so to speak, so I agree with Rand and Peter.

Thank you.

PS (As this may be the last comment on this because I was so late in reading it, I am not going to spend much time editing, so if a human reads this , I apoligize. I have to go feed the horses.)

When I first read Shankman's article, I thought that he was making a case against people who call themselves a social media expert because they've read "Crushing It". I agree with him in that social media techniques are based upon proven marketing principles. However, I also agree with you in that knowing how to use the tools requires some level of expertise. And it's quite obvious when someone is a beginner, intermediate or professional as your graphic indicates. In my view, the takeaway would be that if you are going to hire a social media expert, make sure they are grounded in solid marketing principles and that they know how to use the tools properly and effectively.

>> There's no evidence, only opinion; no examples, just speculation; no data, but loads of stereotyping.

-- Rand

Was there a lot of data in your post above that missed? Did you want to post any research on "dollars in - dollars out" results from the average SM effort? Potential, and best-case-scenarios, are great but that's not what the typical SM strategy has done (or not done) for most of the companies I've seen wade into the SM waters. I see wet feet. Shankman is right on.

>> IT’S ABOUT GENERATING REVENUE

-- Shankman

Well said... and there is very little response to the revenue concept in this article or the comments.

SM may drive "some" revenue, often in difficult to track/measure/optimize ways... we've been hearing that since the SM conversation first tore our ears off. "It's hard to quantify..." - great. Moving away from science to hype/hope marketing... very "dot com" indeed. This has not been a blessing for many of the companies I work with.

From my POV... "social media" sucked all the air of the room. It's not that it's all garbage, but it's taken up a disproportionate amount of time over the last several years... often at the expense of other more worthy opportunites. In that sense, I bet 1$ SM has cost companies millions in missed revenue from other (starved) channels.

For instance.. I am not an email guy, but I still believe in it. I see company after company with Facebook pages and no email strategy. Hope the "likes" are worth it.

>> We’re making the same mistakes that we made during the dotcom era

-- Shankman

Brilliantly said.

...I'll quiet down now and go work in my MySpace strategy. After that, I'll set up 20 mtgs with my clients about how we haven't gotten enough "de.licio.us" "diggs" lately. After that, I'm going to re-read everything I know about AOL... it's coming back!

I'm so excited to see you post this, Rand. I think using terminology like "Social Media Guru" is just downright cliche and any self-respecting PR person (after all, social media IS just hyper-PR) would cringe before writing such things. I'm a PR person and use social media to support PR efforts. Sure, there's plenty of SEO value to appreciate from what social media can do, and there's plenty of technical reasons why companies should do it. But there is an obvious, positive effect as well that stands at the heart of what PR is meant to do - spread the word. Create awareness. Increase traffic. Deliver the goods.

"Keep it simple, stupid." - a lesson we could all learn. Why not use social media authentically? Yes, enjoy the fringe benefits, but instead of manipulating it into snake oil, let's use it as it's intended. Peter's post is sensationalism, hype. It's like, "Look at me! I'm so new age! I'm so against the grain!" His post reminds me of the annoying kid in school that thinks he's witty, but actually comes across as a total tool.

I absolutely, positively loved your closing argument: The "Featured Specialist" screenshot - ha! Brilliant. What a wonderful point and so well-said without saying anything at all.

Thank you for the post! Wonderful, beautiful, excellent stuff. Sage, well-timed advice for anyone looking to add social media to their menu of marketing chops.

Great article randfish. It’s good to learn more about the “Social Media Expert” market and how important it is to business. I’ve always wondered what the job trend was for a social media expert because social media is continuing to play a big role in increasing the ROI of businesses. As this trend continues to grow, there are still a lot of companies and people who have the same assumptions as Peter Shankman. And I must admit myself that I didn’t see how important it was to hire a social media expert to increase the ROI of your business or website.

It makes me wonder what other blogs, business, websites are hiring social media experts. A few sites I can think of that may have hired Social Media Experts are Mashable, Gizmodo, and Engadget. If anyone knows for sure what sites or companies hired social media experts, please share.

When the time comes to hire a social media expert, how do you know he is qualified and how much should you invest in a social media expert? I’m sure there are a lot of frauds out there. But I guess this is just like hiring someone to remodel your house or any other gig. You’ll want to see their work, read any testimonials or feedback about their work, and it would help to meet them through a trusted source.

I’m all for social media and using it to increase brand awareness and in the end increase Return on Investment. Search Engine Optimization and Social Media work hand-in-hand so it’s important to be knowledgeable about both and incorporate both into your website or business.

Beware the self proclaimed "SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT". Expert is a really bad term anyway - professional OK. Has Social been around long enough for people to be expert at it? Outstanding yes - expert NO. It all boils down to communication on a digital medium. If someone has mastered the art of human communication on every social platform they would be an expert. Seen any lately?

Awesome post Rand. It's nice to see SEO's sticking up for social media experts, not that the two are mutually exclusive. In reality the lifecycle of SEO and social media are not so different. SEO was often ridiculed in the beginning, but the companies with vision that started early benefitted greatly. Of course there are ALWAYS going to be bad apples that try to ruin the batch, we're still battling this in the SEO realm, but you can't hold that against an entire industry.

I agree with you that if anyone is focused on achieving better business results in online marketing, not only in SEO or Social Media or any other effort, knowledge and skills are important.

I've found, in my Mexican local market, that some companies still allocate resources for social media efforts as "faith based initiatives" (just like @avinash says). Fortunately, there are also others that are focused on business outcomes and work with social media specialists, professionals or agencies, to achieve their goals efficiently, looking for evidences with objective metrics and doing so in combination with other marketing efforts.

You mentioned expert and specialist as if both terms were the same, and we can call it semantics, but maybe there's a slight difference. I prefer the term specialist, as we are in a very young industry where everything keeps changing and we have to keep learning, so we can maintain or move ahead of a certain degree of specialization.

Watching at the trends for social media expert, it's clear for me that there's a growing interest for finding this kind of guys ;) The difference here is that maybe a third party is looking for an expert and i's ok when the expertise acknowledged by someone else, instead of self proclaimed... What do you think?

Totally agree with Rand. Peter's article is like those "SEO is dead" articles that live on websites that drive a ton of traffic from SEO. You could basically write the same article for any single marketing strategy and belittle it. Or belittle marketing as a whole - see Fred Wilson's "marketing is bs" post.

Truth is, any single marketing technique can be done right - well thought out, creative, well executed, measured, etc. - and can hit a home run. On the flip side, any technique, from TV commercials (think of cheaply produced local spots), print ads, SEO campaigns, paid search, etc., can be done crappily.

Yes there are people that claim to be experts in these fields but they're really not. But there are also actual experts - people that have learned, tested, crafted, and refined their skills in each field.

We've seen more and more of these rants against the ONLINE marketing channels recently, because they are easier to pick on. It's like a new kid in school - people feel empowered to bully them. When SEO became big, it was easy to call it out as bullshit and people that practice it snake-oil salesmen. Now social media is the new kid in school, and here come the bullys again. Its just sad to see these bashes come from people that benefit the most from these tactics, whether they know it or not.

I think the biggest problem is that it is too easy for someone to call themsevles an "expert." It is the same situation with the SEO industry. When you find someone who really knows what they are talking about and how to make social media work for your company, of course you should hire them! But since social media marketing is still a relatively new discipline, there aren't many standards that someone must adhere to to be considered an "expert."

Social media marketing requires specialised skills like any other profession. Managing, building and strengthening your company's brand on the internet is not an easy job. You need to have excellent PR skills, excellent communication skills (both written and verbal), good understanding of social media tools, SEO, PPC, emails and other marketing disciplines and how they work together or can be used together to effectively communicate and promote organization's goals and products.

Just like SEO lot of businesses don't understand what it really takes to do social media marketing. Leaving spammy, pushy message on social networks in not social media marketing. It is 'killing your brand' marketing. I think just like SEO with the passage of time more businesses will realise the importance of Social media and its impact on conversions and branding.

Hey Rand, although I am not a social media expert i wouldn't mind you buying the beer sometimes :)

I do believe that social media is currently the best way to drive traffic, I'm far from being called an expert, really far, but the more I learn about it and the more I try the more results I get. And when I look at the number of users, tweets and likes each day and how traffic flows from some social madia sites to real websites I know that there is much more to be gained there. Claiming that social media experts are of no use is a bold claim, and like you said one without foundation. If a person with no knowledge can simply engage users on Twitter and talk to them, offer them an advice or two and end up with 1,000 visits a day from Twitter in 6 months than I really wouldn't skip the possibility of having a social media expert do the job. My guess is, not only will he increase the traffic, but he will increase targeted traffic that will increase sales, and he will make that traffic long lasting, which on the other hand is also great for a brand reputation management campaign, a part I need to learn more about regarding social media.

Again, social media is currently the honey of the online world, and we all love honey!

I agree with most of your post, but also share the point of gfiorelli1. Social Media for business is like a completely new way of behaving and communicating not only with your customers but also with your prospects and the market in general. There is so much hype over Social Media Experts that people completing a simple 20-hours course consider themselves "experts". There is a long, long way before we start to focus on Social Media ROI and not so much on the number of followers, fans or Likes, on results and not in just the noise.

I've only just started learning in terms of Social Media, and that's because of it becoming a necessity to do good SEO.

Despite only just starting out in this area and therefore not having learnt much in terms of what there is to learn, I can see that there's a tonne of great stuff that can be achieved from it. But like anything it requires knowledge and experience to be carried out properly. With only a few months of it under my belt so far, I would not be confident in offering it as a paid service to our clients as I don't think I'm anywhere near the level needed to do a good job for them yet, I've got a long way to go for that.

This, to me, makes it very clear... to suggest that it's not needed to hire an expert if you want it done right is nuts!

I realise that with an internet marketing background, and a couple of months study in Social Media I do not have the experience required to do great things with social, so how would a business owner or marketer with no experience in that area know what to do properly and how to do it?

It's like saying you can look after all of your own accounts, or represent yourself in court... sure you can, but don't expect the same results as if you hired an accountant or a lawyer. Okay that might be an extreme example, but it's the same principle... I wouldn't trust someone to work on my car who wasn't a mechanic, and I wouldn't try to fix my car myself. I can give it a service, just as I can do a bit of bookkeeping with our accounts or write a letter in a legal sense but that's where it ends. If you're going to do a full job or something and you want real results, hire a professional.

There's a sea of difference between an amateur and a professional in any industry. An amateur trying to do a professionals work does not result in the same outcome, or even anywhere near it. In fact, it will probably end up costing time and money through failures and unforeseen situations (possibly even damage).

I wouldn't put Fark under "Advanced Knowledge". That site is really on the level of Digg or Reddit. But with and even more juvenille user base than the others. The only benefit that I can see is that you can buy ads. But now you can do that on Digg. (In fact Digg is now MOSTLY ads, which is why their users recently fled in droves). And Reddit has had advertising as part of their model since the beginning. Anyhow, here is my obligatory "super great article Rand!". I don't want to come across as curmudgeonly ;) Great job!

Seriously though, for me it all boils down to communication. There are lots of forms of communication and it's very difficult to be an expert in every area. Social media is another form of communication. It's a huge specialism and to really benefit from it you need a specialist.

We launched a program that aims to empower our team members to create content -- where we train the entire team about the benefits of content marketing and share to them Inbound Marketing tips and tactics, established guidelines on proper usage and behavior for social networking apps, strengthen our social media efforts, to name a few.

We believe that social media is a great add on to our marketing mix -- whether it's done in-house or outsourced depends on a number of factors.

First I agree the author did not offer much in the way of evidence, but then I have seen not much in the way of evidence that social media has a dramatic affect on search results. Sure if something goes viral I assume you would see results, and I know that both Bing and Google have said that they use SM signals. But I doubt they give much weight to them. People on Social Media are not representative of the general population, and their view are therefore of no use in determining what the general population wants in their searp’s.

Sure lots of people are hiring them as you showed, but then again lots of people have been paying outrageous prices for houses here in Australia and in Ireland, time has show them to be wrong in their judgment. Numbers of people hiring SM experts is not evidence of their worth.

I again make the point that Social Media is not representative, and if search engines use it for more then a slight signal they will be damaging the reliability of their results.

If we relied on social media for results only, the term Paris would return Paris Hilton, Paris the city on page 5 maybe, the figure of Greek legend never.

No Qualification System - There is no way for a layman to tell whether an individual (or company) is qualified to do social media marketing

No Barrier to Entry - Anyone with access to a computer and the internet can be a social media expert

Thats it.

Social Media is hot right now. It has been for several years now and will continue for the forseeable future. With this in mind, every business wants to make sure they are capitalizing on it properly. I attend a few traditional business networking events on a monthly basis. These are outside of the "Industry" type events with a wide mix a varying businesses (usually fairly low tech). From my own experience, during casual conversations, if I speak about Social Media, a crowd sometimes gathers and everyone has input. If I speak about SEO, only a select few will participate in the conversations.

Right now, Social Media gets the attention. And anyone can be an expert because of the two items listed above.

So if you want the attention (for whatever reason), get a smartphone so you can access Facebook from an app and BAM you're a Social Media Expert!

Confusion, confusion, everyone have thier own experince and approach, but the thing is what you think and what the people think about you. Now a days Social Media Expert is a second name of huge list of fans followers freinds but i think they all are spammers but some are not you have to qaulity work rather than qauntity, social media gives you a huge traffic if you got a same nich fan followers rather than different services you got like twiends. but in last Social media makes the difference if you go in right direction.

I think there is a fair point about the difference in levels of expertise surrounding social media and that to simply 'get on-board' doesnt take an Einstein but the arguement to which every business/brand/individual needs a social media expert would depend entirely on the objectives they are trying to acheive from that medium. You wouldn't necessarily need Da Vinci for a simple logo design just as you wouldn't need a 'Social Media Expert' if you merely use the medium as a chanel for customer service and to maintain an online presence.

However there is a big gap between having someone successfully manage a brand's social media presence, maintaining a good image and pushing the products and services in a subtle yet effective way and having someone develop and implement a succesful social media marketing strategy that either stands alone or integrates with a bigger picture. While there is no doubt that there are people who can do the former, I think there needs to be more credit to those who acheive the latter and these individuals are certainly not due any discredit.

The big problem is that social media is a part of our everyday lives be that professional and personal, therefore making it familar terretory and perhaps what is percieved as an easy route to a profession, for those who just use it for themselves. Before hiring any self proclaimed 'social media expert' I would consider whether they truly have an expertise for getting the most out of social media for commercial gain or marketing purposes, or they just use social media a lot and know how to press all the buttons.

Given the stats, it's just so hard to believe that there are still naysayers, it's like arguing manned flight will never take off while Neil Armstrong is standing on the moon!

I guess that since 'social media experts' are the main object of his rant it is easy to feel adressed, but I think that social media experts who do their job well need not worry here. The main thought I gather from Shankman's article is not that expertise on the area of social media does nothing or somehow doesn't work or isn't needed. Instead, it seems that far too often, a good product and/or service is neglected in favor of creating a strong social media presence. This is why the bread metaphor is a good one, in my eyes. What's the point of being good at making available content (the bread) and presenting it in an appeasing way (the (social media) marketing around it), if the bread is molded and rotten - i.e. the content is crap.

Shankman's plea to me seems to be much more that businesses should sort their content out before going bananas on Facebook friends and Twitter followers. If the content/story/product/service is good, these will come more easily.

I mean, do you feel Shankman's talking about you when he pictures one of these 'experts' saying "It's not about building a website anymore! It's so much cooler! It's about Facebook, and fans, and followers, and engagement, and influence, and..." ? I would hope not.

Perhaps the title of Shankman's article is a bit too provocative, but to me, what this article says couldn't be more right: Before going hunting for Likes, Fans and Followers for the sake of having them - and outsourcing this process to an 'expert', make sure your story is in order. A proper expert would probably say this to a business anyway, and thus shouldn't feel adressed.

First of all - so honored to be included here. Especially amongst the likes of the others in the list. I mean WOW!!!

So much of this (not this post per se, but this discussion) mirrors exactly the same conversations I've seen in SEO. This is a very hyped up and new profession that has a very low barrier to entry. There are unfortunately a rather large number of people running around calling themselves "experts" who in fact know next to nothing and bring with them nearly zero experience. Those folks give social media professionals such an insanely bad name. But there are those same types of people in many other industries. If the true professionals are diligent and active in the community, as our industry changes I hope that things will change for the better. The phonies will become easier to spot and there will be less of them. Hopefully. Perhaps that's a bit idealistic.

I do think that there is an obvious place, at least currently for some level of in-house social media expertise. Not an expert mind you or at least someone who would refer to themselves as such. But someone who is really and truly knowledgeable in regards to social as a channel and an engagement platform as well as how it ties in to the rest of the online marketing, PR, communications and product related groups. Rand you did a great job in your breakdown of the types of social media roles and associated tasks. It visually demonstrates just how varied this space is and what it takes to be good at it in all different levels.

I'm glad someone wrote something to rebuttle Peter Shankman's post. I understand that sometimes hiring someone for a specific field can be frustrating when they don't meet expectations, but to flat out say all social media experts are worthless is just very untrue and plain rude. The benefits and impact of social media have proven obvious on several occasions. I envy anyone that can optimize social media, for I myself am absolutely horrible at it :)

Just my 2 cents here but I was more of the impression that Mr Shankman wasnt bashing "Social Media Experts" who are actually experts ... he was bashing with the self-proclaimed title but were basically glorified profile-setter-uppers.

The rest of Mr Shankmans article focused on the expertise a "true" social media expert brings to the table ... ultimately concluding, and rightly so in my opinion, that whatever the "medium" it is a marketing job and marketing should directly impact revenue.

Haha way to bust Shankman on that. I used to enjoy what he wrote about but more and more I was finding his content becoming a little more negative and started to turn me away to the point where I unsubscribed. I believe a well seasoned social community manager is a huge asset to any business in any industry.

Whilst I don't use the term "ninja" myself, I know there are some amazing SEO's out there who use it a lot. I don't think (in their case at least) it's anything like trying to look "cool". It's just a bit of fun, it was coined, caught on, and has been going for ages.

If we looked that deeply and negatively into every expression used there would be no such thing as industry language.

The way I see it, web based marketing was a new thing with the web being new, it was embraced by young and fresh thinking people, who instead of sticking with stuffy old terms like expert and specialist, added their own fun, more funky and modern titles... as would be expected.

I'd have to agree that he was looking for reactions. There is no doubt a lot of "self proclaimed" experts of the internet, but there are also a lot of hard working specialists that are more than worth the money in consulting. Overall I liked the post and enjoyed the same sentiments, glad that you came out and screenshotted him as well.lol

I am also supporter of you. Social media experts have own role and methods to work on different websites. If any website owner will do at own so He or She can do it but, must require spending time on it.

Why we are buy different services for our business rather than learn it and implement at own?

But obvious, we want to save our time & transfer that time to our own expertise.

Social media experts have own skills & let them do for your business rather than jump in to own stuff.

As per Randfish, if you want to work on basic social media website so you don't need to learn more because: we are using that websites on daily basis.

But, expert guys can focus on all factors to get maximum benefits from all aspects of website.

I also want to give one example: I have profile on Stumbleupon. I have added text link to profile & I suppose to make aware about it after long time with highly active work out on it. We can find out too many stumbleupon profiles without text link. They may be forget or not aware about it due to less experience on specific website.

Who can say that: Social media expert can work without knowledge of different industry. I want to give 100 ups to Randfish on this factor.

I think Mr Shankman loves to believe in his own words rather than believing it on the current statistics of SMM, Social Media does not bother him like as the time is not waiting for anyone. As same as Technology does not bother for some one if he does not adopt that technology then its his fault not technologies fault... :)